Proactive retention at your contact center requires a view that is based on the customer's perspective and experience. Gaining this "outside-in" view is not just about gathering anecdotal information. It should always involve analytics that bring the customer's perspective into focus.

Companies should use analytics to:

• Analyze customer behavior by event type. Companies need to analyze in detail each customer contact to understand why customers are calling. Understanding the why, and how it fits into the customer experience lifecycle, is an important baseline for facilitating the outside-in view of the customer.
• Analyze customer behavior by segment. Companies can examine the behavior of different customer segments to find, for example, how high-value customers use a speech application, or how younger-generation customers prefer to interact with the company. This provides a foundation for designing interactions, service, and channel strategies that are tailored to various customer segments.
• Analyze customer behavior across channels. Analysis of customer activity in a single channel, while powerful, does not offer a full view of customer behavior, so companies need to look across channels. For example, a cross-channel analysis may show that customers are having difficulty updating information in a Web channel, and are turning to the more-expensive live-agent channel. In response, a company should optimize the speech application to handle these requests and avoid costlier calls. In essence, the cross-channel analysis helps companies gain a full view of end-to-end customer behavior.

By using analytics in this way, companies gain a clear and accurate grasp of the customer experience based on a wide range of data, rather than on a narrow slice of customer surveys and executive intuition. Such a view can have a real impact, and will help when building a proactive retention strategy.

Well-planned retention efforts protect your existing customer base in the following ways:

• Give customers what they want. In recent research Convergys found that customers place the highest value on knowledgeable employees and having their problems solved quickly—ideally, on the first call. Companies need to make sure agents have the tools and information they need to serve customers with speed and precision. Here, companies can draw on knowledge management systems, speech-based navigation of screens, and intelligent routing to match customers with agents who are best-equipped to address their needs. 
• Use analytics to make predictions. Companies can now use analytics to predict which customers are most likely to defect, and to understand what types of incentives will entice customers to remain, which makes it possible to act quickly to resolve issues and increase customer retention.
• Make the save. As customers call in, an effective analytics system will "know" if they have a history of bad experiences with the company, allowing the agent to take appropriate action on the spot, or making it possible to route the customer to "save" specialists who can help identify and solve customer problems. In many cases such proactive approaches can be automated. For example, if a flight is cancelled or there is a security question on a credit card account, systems can automatically send messages to the customer via voice, email, or text message to notify him of the problem. This helps reduce costly calls into a center, and can help turn a potential negative interaction into a positive customer experience.

To be effective, retention efforts must incorporate analytics that capture the customer experience. With a clear picture of who your customers are, what they need, and what they think about your company, you can take the right steps to make sure they remain loyal.

About the author: Andrea Ayers is President of the Customer Management Group at Convergys. Contact her at andrea.ayers@convergys.com